But winning may have been the easy part. Ahead of the York County Democrat is the task of pushing an ambitious platform through a Republican-controlled legislature, while inheriting a major deficit and ballooning public pension system costs.

"You have to be careful what you wish for," said Charlie Gerow, a political consultant who advised Gov. Tom Corbett's campaign. "If Tom Corbett had a difficult time, I don't think Tom Wolf will have an easier one."

Not unlike Wolf, Corbett was popular when he rose from a corruption-busting attorney general to the office of the governor in 2011. Despite the benefit of majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, he faced one setback after another in rolling out his political agenda. He never overcame the strained relationships with legislators that were a legacy of public corruption prosecutions he'd undertaken as attorney general.

Like Corbett, the challenges facing Wolf are significant: He will face a newly strengthened Republican majorities in both the House and Senate that don't share many aspects of his agenda.

Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin and Marshall College, said the intense partisanship in the Legislature, particularly the House, will be a tremendous hurdle. Wolf has repeatedly said that he plans to reach out and build consensus, Madonna said, but passing any kind of tax increase, for one example, could prove nothing short of impossible.

"The one word I'd describe for all this is uncertainty," he said. "No one can say for sure, but those of us that know some of these lawmakers are really wondering."

In previous eras, Madonna said there was a lot of room for consensus building because politicians genuinely wanted to bring things back to their home districts. Opponents could leverage those desires to forge compromises on legislation.

"More than half of the Legislature are new and were elected to change the culture and lifestyle in Harrisburg, not to continue with business as usual," he said. "It makes it very difficult to increase spending and taxes because there's an ideological component that we previously didn't have."

Here is where Wolf's leadership style may come in.

Terry Madonna

"He's very personal and will spend 15 or 20 minutes chatting about things like family or sports," said Madonna, who's collected anecdotes from people who've worked with Wolf in the York political scene. "Then, you segue back into the business end and your hackles aren't up."

Many who've worked with Wolf say the campaign ads, in which he telegraphed an empathetic and almost paternal air, aren't too far off base from the real man.

J.J. Balaban, a Democratic political analyst unconnected to the Wolf campaign, said Wolf's outsider status could be both an asset and a liability. Wolf arrives with less baggage than most candidates, but may also have fewer long-term relationships to call upon when rolling out his agenda.

Then again, Balaban said, Wolf already has many connections through his time as a major Democratic donor and his tenure as revenue secretary under Gov. Ed Rendell. Also he learned how to work across political divisions from his time on various boards in the Republican-dominated York area.

"Given his standing in one of the state's most conservative counties, there's good reason to think he's going to be able to communicate effectively with the Republican leadership," he said.

And that's same Republican legislature, of course, that clashed with Corbett over his agenda.

"It's hard to imagine Tom Corbett's departure will be a cause of great sorrow for most Republican legislators," he said. "Clearly, the relationship between Corbett and Republicans was strained, at best, and that's probably another thing Wolf has going in his favor. It's not like Tom Wolf is replacing Mr. Popular."

Issues of gamesmanship and style aside, Wolf will now have to set his agenda and put it in motion.

Gerow said every incoming governor will have the benefit of a "honeymoon period," but that period has been steadily shrinking in recent decades because of the 24-hour news cycle.

Wolf's first big test, he said, will be the budget address, which typically comes in February or March. Incoming governors typically have until March to make theirs.

"The votes aren't there for a major tax increase in the Republican-held legislature," Gerow said. "It would test his skills as a negotiator. He'd have to compromise or alter his stated objectives in order to get anything through."

Madonna said that budget would give voters an idea how ambitious Wolf's administration will be. It will also show how serious he is at tackling the state's long-running structural deficit, which some reports have put as high as $4 billion.

"Corbett had it tough, but he also had it easier in a way," Madonna said. "He said, 'I'm just going to cut. We don't have to have a debate about raising more revenues, we're just going to cut'."

"It would be unorthodox and probably a distraction that the Wolf camp would rather not have," Balaban said.

For Wolf's part, the candidate has said the maneuver "doesn't sound legal."

Possibly the largest indicator of the direction of Wolf's first term will be what issue or issues he pushes first.

Balaban said Wolf enters office with a great deal of political good will. However, given the constraints in the Legislature, he said Wolf really has two options: He can pursue an sweeping piece of legislation and then work backwards toward a compromise or he could go after a bill that already has bipartisan support in order to get an early victory before tackling more ambitious changes.

Addressing school funding and a Marcellus shale tax could prove fruitful, Balaban said, since they were two major issues that made Corbett unpopular. Legislation banning employment discrimination of homosexuals may also garner bipartisan support, he said.

Madonna said there might be support for medical marijuana, given the bill is already sponsored by a Republican senator, although it may still be a tough sell to the House. The shale tax is also overwhelmingly popular among voters and could give Wolf an early victory, but repealing Corbett's raft of "Healthy PA" legislation would be impossible for at least another six months.

Gerow said he's not so sure about the shale tax, since it had also been considered a "done deal" four years ago only to fall through. Medical marijuana, however, could provide a solid victory.

"I think the Republicans in the House don't have their heels dug in on (marijuana) as much as some people think," Gerow said.

Marijuana would also be a smarter move, Gerow said, because, unlike the shale tax, it's not something Wolf highlighted during his campaign. If he lost a bid for the shale tax, however, it could prove a bad omen for the rest of Wolf's first term.

"People would not see (losing marijuana) as a big loss for him personally or him burning up a lot of political capital with no result," he said. "In the early days of any new administration, it could be symbolically wise to get a win."

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